How to Make Bread with Tracy

Brother: Hey, everyone. My sister Tracy is visiting us here up at Connecticut House and we are making some kind of bread. Tracy: Honey whole-wheat. Brother: A honey whole-wheat bread. We are going to put it in the refrigerator. Tracy: Yeah. First RapidRise and then you put it in the refrigerator. So, if you don’t have time to make bread is actually do your time to make bread. That‘s the point. Brother: And she is the bread expert, so here we go. Alright There is warm water here. Tracy: Yeah, the RapidRise yeast that I cut on the wrong side. Brother: Okay, but it has to be the RapidRise, not just active yeast. Tracy: Right. That will be fine, hang out. Brother: So, is it okay that there are some clumps in this, is that okay? Tracy: Oh yeah, that will be fine. Watch it because it will start popping up and growing already, see. Where is the milk? Oh, I forgot to get it out of the refrigerator. Brother: Whose this sunlight? Tracy: So, I am actually a little bit over three quarters there but its gardenfork, so it will be underneath. There is the milk right next to the bowl. Brother: Oh, so you put the milk in the microwave for a minute. Tracy: Yeah. And if you don’t want to drink it, then it’s definitely very too high. Brother: If it is too hot to drink, then the milk is too hot. Tracy: Yeah, you need it about 110 to 120. Brother: This is another bowl, this is going in, this is a -- Tracy: French Brother: Chestnut. Tracy: Chestnut, oh cool. Only 2 tablespoons even though it’s honey wheat bread, I wonder about that. But any kind of sugar, any sweet stuff you have in a bread recipe is food for the yeast. So, we don’t want to overfeed our yeast with our honey. What I should have done is measure the oil first because then the measuring tool would be all nice and slippery and the honey would just slide right out of it instead of sticking there. Brother: So, if this has a slick of oil on it and if it has some vegetable oil on it, on the spoon. Tracy: Right. Brother: Then you need to have to do the honey that will come right out. Tracy: Yeah, instead of having honey stuck in your tablespoon right there. Brother: I have the spatula you know, you got anyone? Tracy: Salt in bread inhibits the growth of yeast and you never -- Brother: I was just going to ask that actually, because on the green-house site for my No-knead Bread Variation, I have like a tablespoon of salt and one of the members left the comment that said too much salt will kill the rise. Tracy: Right, yeah. So, the honey will make it get really excited to grow really fast but the salt will balance it out and keep it in check. Brother: Alright, so we are mixing? Tracy: Mix, mix, mix. Yeah. Oh that’s pretty simple. Brother: Okay, I understand. But you just added the yeast. Tracy: The yeast and the water, it was in into the other liquid ingredients, are all mixed up. Brother: So, Tracy: One and half cups of flour, oh very nice. Brother: This is from the Brooklyn Kitchen, which is as really cool store they got. They got written up in the New York Times the other day, very nice people and so this is called the dough scrapper or pastry scrapper. But you can scrap them all with it. Tracy: Hi, puppy. It’s Miji, hi Miji Brother: So, when you started close to getting the kneading part and now you are going to add the whole-wheat flour. Tracy: Yeah, this one is a pretty simpler recipe. Its 2 cups whole wheat and this is pretty dangerous measuring over the bowl and 2 cups of white while the goodness for me and the flour is absorbing the liquid. So, it’s turning into a big doughy mass that was soon have to be turned out on to board and kneaded. Miji. Brother: Do you like bread? Yes Sir, I like bread. Tracy: Came up to a half cup of whole-wheat I am going to put in almost a whole another half cup so I can get this out of the bowl because __ Brother: It’s just too gluey right now; see you want to add more flour. Tracy: Right. Brother: So it will like to ball up. Tracy: Yeah. Brother: Alright. So this is as you say, you scrape this out and it goes onto the board. So you are turning that you put dough down, you put flour down, and then you are turning the flour into the dough. Tracy: Yeah, this is pretty one. Brother: So a scraper like this is really handy then. Tracy: oh, gosh yeah. He use it for everything. Brother: So this is flour from that you have to add this in its call for a recipe. Tracy: Yes. I am still not up to my whole 2 cups of whole-wheat. So here we go. Brother: So, to get the final measurements. Tracy: You work on it. Brother: We are going to knead it in basically. Tracy: Yeah, too nice. Brother: So, could you do a slow motion knead to show us how to do it? Tracy: Oh my god, I don’t know I can do this in slow motion. Hey, here is my bread I take both hands, I push down, pull forward, push down. Brother: So you pull in the front. Tracy: Pull forward. Brother: You are pulling the front to the back again was really what you are doing. Tracy: Yeah, push down, pull forward, and then I flip. Brother: So, it’s in a hotdog shape and then you move it there into a ball shape. Tracy: One, two, three, you got to rest and work, you just put your bread hard a little bit. Brother: So, there is more flour on the board now and then we are going to take this and I want to go, with fists I am going to push forward and then with my fingers I am going to pull this back like that and then push forward again and back like this. So I do this 3 times and then you turn it 90 degrees, and you do folded over on itself again and then you push this out. Tracy: Are you feeling better? Brother: Yeah, I feel much calmer. Stressful having my sister around, so when you know its done being kneaded. Tracy: No. That’s a really hard question. If you are new to kneading, I would run a timer. Brother: Okay, say it will say knead for 10 minutes or something. Tracy: Yeah and it will feel like an eternity when you start, it will 8 minutes, I can do this for 8 minutes. You can. You really can. Brother: So I can disturb that sticking, I can take my scraper. Tracy: Yes, as that was not too dry, we get everything. If you feels like clay dough while claying, okay. Brother: So we, as now we shape it a little ball, like a small big soft ball. Tracy: Hey little baby, okay time to rest 10 minutes rest. Brother: Yeah, we will wait ten minutes. Tracy: 10 minutes. Brother: Okay, so its 10 minutes is over, and we have a clean nice towel, look at that. Very nice. Tracy: It looks the same. So don’t worry, if they doesn’t like different. It wasn’t transforming itself under there. hey baby. Brother: So, it’s not going to be substantially larger or anything, Tracy: No, you would - - things are happening but we just can’t see them. So with RapidRise yeast, the first rising is cut down to a 10 minutes rest cycle. And our second rising is going to be in the refrigerator overnight because we have a busy day. And I am just going to shape a basic loaf for a nine by five pan that we have already greased. Brother: That’s a greased pan, we used butter or you can use vegetable shortening. Tracy: Yeah, I prefer Crisco but Brother: Right. So we got a rolling pan. Tracy: Yeah, we are just going to make a bit of a rectangle and it’s going to slide around. The bread is very springy at this point. Brother: Yeah, it was springy. Tracy: The instructions are going to tell you to have something like a roll it out to an, like a eight by fourteen or eight by twelve. You know, it’s dough, it doesn’t go into rectangles, it goes in the ovals. When you roll that up if you can, kind of tightly. Brother: So, it’s kind of rolling up the roll like I think a carpet, Tracy: Yeah, that’s all. Keep rolling and you have a seam, pinch that closed. So you are making a wet part of the dough, if there is any part that is still little moist, grab onto each other, here we go. Brother: So, you have turned that out side, you have turned that seam is down now. Tracy: What a cutey. Yeah and this dough is sturdy. Brother: Take that. Tracy: Pop them in. Look at that, nice. We put a little bit of oil on it; you just brush it on the bread. Brother: So this is just a vegetable oil, Tracy: A vegetable oil so that when it is in the refrigerator, it does not dry out and form a skin on top of the loaf, which will then really not be very pleasant to chewing to and bite out. Brother: Okay, so you got oil at the top of it and put it in the fridge. Tracy: Cover with silver wrap, put in the fridge for 2 to 24 hours and we set for 375 or 35 minutes, that’s it. Just look at that, and breathe. Yeah. It sounds done. Brother: We took this out of the oven and it looks great. So, what you are going to do now. Tracy: Okay. This is tricky; you have to get if you can cut the bread out of the pan, without burning yourself. Brother: Oh, I miss that. Tracy: Yeah, can you hear that? Brother: Yeah. Tracy: Bread should sound hallow. Brother: okay, so I have to do some work in the college, I see my life is like here. We went up to the camp last night and we had dinner and Tracy brought her bread and it went really well. Oh we realized we forgot to have tasting. Tracy: You can’t slice your bread too quickly, you need to wait 20 to 30minutes after taking out of the oven before you slice the bread. Brother: Oh, they are really good.